A Hair Off Square   custom cards

Gil Meche will always be a very noteworthy Royal. The Royals were laughed at when they signed him to one of the larger deals in that off-season. Over the next couple of years everybody seemed to think this was a much better signing than originally thought. It seems this is one of the few big free agent contracts the Royals got right.

Meche retired today citing his recent injuries. This makes a lot of sense. He was relegated to the bullpen because his arm couldn’t hold up and he was at the end of his career anyway it would have appeared. I was always a fan of Gil Meche and I am very glad he put on a Kansas City uniform. Here are a couple of Gil Meche cards to honor him.

Gil Meche 1984 Donruss

Gil Meche 1980 Topps

Here’s one I am pretty damn proud of. 1983 Topps was a great design. A great clean looking card, one of only a few sets to use and inset picture on the front of the card. I like the colors as well a nice mixture of light blue and a purplish blue with plenty of white to balance it out. The inset picture is normally something I don’t like much. I don’t like the 1984 Topps design near as much as the 83 design. It had the inset picture as well but it was square along with square lettering and led to a very clunky looking card. In contrast, 1983 Topps is a smooth design. Another interesting thing about this set is that the mugshot picture varied on different cards; it would sometimes be on the left and sometimes be on the right.

I have used Soria as my model for many of the card designs because he is a Royal and will be a Royal for at least a little longer it appears. I knew Zack was on the way and didn’t use him, and there are plenty of nice pictures of Soria as well. He is also one of my favorite all-time Royals. I saw him in person when he had his really good stuff and it was one of the impressive things I have ever seen on a baseball field.

Overall, good pictures, good looking card and a really impressive result. Look for a complete “2010 Royals Roster” set for 1983 Topps like I did with the 1980 set.

Time for a little winter cleanup, Greinke is gone. I’m angry about it right now, so I am cleaning out the closet. Here are three Topps cards I have made already. They likely could be the last for quite a while.

1993 Donruss was a great looking set; nice white border, simple design, nice pictures, full color team logo..so what was missing? How about a George Brett card?

The 1993 Donruss set contained a whopping 792 cards and 28 Kansas City Royals cards, but did not feature the Hall of Fame Royals legend. The set would have came out after the 1992 baseball season, admittingly a down season for Brett; he batted .285 with 7 homers and 61 RBIs, for Brett’s standards anyway. He even played the next season so I see no good reason Brett wasn’t in the set. Donruss even made a card of him the next year in 1994.

To try to rectify the situation I have made a custom card for George Brett for the 1993 Donruss set.

The missing George Brett 1993 Donruss card.

This is a tribute to 1984 Donruss, along with 1971 Topps, one of my favorite sets of all time. I did three of the Royals pitchers for now. This is probably a set I will finish out at some point. I figure I should do as many Greinke cards as I can while he is still wearing a Royals hat.

Last year I did a Kansas City Royals card set as well. I did 1971 Topps; my favorite card design of all time. Many of the players are already gone, some for the best, I’m looking at you Jose Guillen. It looks like I did 22 cards. Of those 22, 13 are gone. That leaves only 9 current players I did, keep in mind this was just last year I believe.

It seems you never know how bad some of your players are until they are gone, I’m looking at you Mike Jacobs. Ah, Mike Jacobs, one of three DH’s the Royals carried that year. Luckily Billy Butler learned to play first out of necessity. Of the former players there are a couple I really wish we had back. Either Miguel Olivo or John Buck would both be an improvement over Kendall offensively. David Dejesus of course is a player Royals fans will miss.

Here is a sampling of the 22 cards. I am going to post all the players that have since left. I will probably re-do the rest of the set to fit the current roster. I know everyone wants to see that Jesse Chavez card.